A Bit of Understanding
by Ashforge
Summary: Tomorrow, it will be Fanny's thirteenth birthday. Right now, she is busy thinking of how the entire organization is crooked...as well as the other as well. Good thing there's always someone to make her see the truth, even after decommissioning. 86x362


**Codename: Kids Next Door **belongs to Mr. Warburton and everyone else that played a part in it's direction and creation.

* * *

"This is it; it sure has been a long road hasn't it?"

Thirteen meant that you had finally become a teenager, and that no matter how hard you worked in the Kids Next Door organization you were inevitably decommissioned. It had been a couple of months maybe since operative 362 left, she was older than them. She had to be decommissioned earlier. But now, 362 was Rachel and Rachel was in middle school. Surprisingly, it was amazing that she had not joined the other teens in berating and beating upon them. How, what was it? Immature, picking on little kids.

Fanny was coming up on that birthday too, in fact, that day would be tomorrow. Tomorrow, much to the girls chagrin would be the day she'd say goodbye to the Kids Next Door and become their enemy. It was a fate that all operatives were doomed to, except perhaps the lucky chosen that were operatives even after teen years. Fanny herself remembered filing some cases on those, pinky promised to secrecy and silenced many other times by Rachel herself.

So the middle school was waiting for her now, with their Battle Ready Armor and football teams. Though, the experience, she knew would not be so bad since Rachel would be there to help her through it. Although, again the mind spurs another thought, the memory of a friend and a lover would and should be long diminished from both their minds by the time she would get there. It was, naturally, the decommissioning device that did such a thing. No need for memories that would harm the organization, Fanny herself always boasted on the technology and kept it in a savor. No one, no one could remember names and faces, passwords and secrets.

So it would be tomorrow that she would forget her first kiss, which ended up being with another girl, and by tomorrow she will forget how much she cared for being a kid. What was it that the secret operative said before being decommissioned? "Kids Next Door Rules?" Perhaps not as much as they praised themselves to be, by the time it was to be decommissioned, everything that they were doing and the adults were doing too seemed…immature.

But this, Fanny regrettably knew, was just another sign that she was becoming one of them. She thought that rainbow monkeys were childish now, and that maybe she should go get some new training bras for when the birthday came. It was a bitter regret that made her pound the window of her bedroom in rage. Why did this happen to blissful kids? Although, she knew, one person cannot stay in an imaginary world forever. Someone needed to pay the bills, buy the food, and school was not a factor of how you acted. It was simple mind over matter; she was always told that when she got this old she'd act like this. She didn't have to, Rachel didn't act like this but the back of her mind said that teens think differently and that they will hate kids and things related to them.

Fanny admitted to disliking some of the stuff, but hate was such a strong word. The teen and adult influence was merely peer pressure. One believed such, the others followed the example. A person could never change their mind about something, stay a kid forever. It has happened medically, it could happen to any person. Your body just changes with years, and so the Kids Next Door scorned such a thing. What makes them better than that Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis? Was it child-like innocence that was long lost from them the second they held a weapon in their hand? Perhaps, the words are like a plague to her tongue, the adults are right for punishing them.

The window slid open, and a blonde head poked in. Fanny was thrown off guard, nearly screamed until she saw who it was. Rachel, by the gods of ice cream, what was she doing here? How did the defenses not detect her? The girl looked odd, glancing around a room she knows as well as the owner curiously. Finally, setting her hazel eyes upon Fanny, Rachel folded her arms to rest her head on them.

"Do I know you?"

It was a disgustingly hilarious question to ask a person. Especially when you had broken into their home and looked around their sleeping quarters, Fanny didn't know whether to laugh or scream. The teen looked especially interested in this fact though, grinning blissfully as her legs dangled from the second story, touching the tree branch she had used to climb in. It was almost insulting, even as a teen, Rachel was still as beautiful to Fanny as when they were kids.

"Err…" In all honesty, Fanny didn't know how to answer that question. She was going to be decommissioned tomorrow, so it would probably be pointless to say "no" to a person who was most likely going to become her comrade. At the same time, the KND was strict about the rules of leaking intelligence to teens. Even teens that showed no signs of hostility.

Rachel frowned and scooted into the window closer, probably because she was slipping. There was still no hostility towards anyone, just simple curiosity that was not yet satisfied by Fanny. There was silence for awhile, as if Rachel thought Fanny was going to finish her statement. In turn, Fanny was only waiting for a weapon to be pulled on her so the moment wouldn't feel so awkward.

"So I don't know you?" Rachel tried again, as if she were trying to get something different out of the preteen before her. "Because I kept thinking that you looked familiar to me, but I was too embarrassed to talk to you in public. Those immature teenagers, they shun you every time you look at a kid without hostility."

Innocent in nature, the blonde grinned blissfully upon Fanny. It was a ploy, probably, Fanny really couldn't tell anymore. Tomorrow was decommissioning, and while she'd rather say she'd be spending the rest of her life in there…there wasn't much of a choice. Tomorrow she'd turn thirteen and then, once again, she'd be together with Rachel who had long since progressed to an image of detachment. Rachel would always be twenty five steps ahead of her, and even if she reached out, her hand would only be worth a penny to that distance. Twenty-four with her hands out, and that distance will probably never change. Fanny sighed, looking at the teen that had crawled into the bedroom to keep from slipping.

"Sure, you know me," Her decision was made, "but tomorrow, I'm going to ask you who you are."

Rachel leaned forward, having surprise fill her face. All that surprise looked odd on the former leaders face, the genuine look of surprise was often nullified on her thought induced face. Now, the teen airily listened to everything Fanny put out. Fanny didn't know whether this was a poison of the decommissioning device or it really was her real nature, but she had never seen such an empty headed look on her former lover.

"Oh?" The blonde beckoned cheerfully, "Why is that?"

And what was known as tears wanted to break the seal of her tear ducts, Fanny looked to the last Rainbow Monkey left in her room. Cheerfully morbid, it smiled broadly back at her as if telling her that this moment of sorrow was merely a child's game. Always laughing at them, now Fanny could see it, and never sympathizing. Her thoughts, though hardly important, were interrupted by the blonde finding her way to be awkwardly close to her face. Airy concern laced the bold hazel iris of her eyes.

"Oh," Fanny grew hot with embarrassment, "um, as I was saying…"

"Why will you forget me, Fanny?"

That was a question that Number 86 found interesting. Though, she does not recall ever telling this changed girl her name. What a strange question indeed. The red head straightened her position, narrowing her left eye at Rachel who casually grinned back. There was something strange going on now, now something was up.

"Damn, I said your name, didn't I? Let that one slip!"

Rachel began laughing after such a screw up. It was not funny; in any case, Fanny was not pleased. The girl growled incasing her anger with in her palms, trying to steady her fiery Irish rage within her. Snarling with a white hot rage, Number 86 pounced upon the teen making both their bodies collide with the floor. As Rachel let her chuckling die down, and Fanny let her rage seethe out. They were only able to stare at each other.

"I'm the best spy in the KND," Rachel winked pressing her forehead to Fanny's. "So even when you forget, I'll always be there to remind you."

Fanny smiled, understanding that now she had nothing to fear of decommissioning. There was a person she loved waiting for her on the other side.

**Happy Birthday**

_Epilogue_

_A redheaded teen reaches the middle school, looking up upon the tall concrete. The entire world was unfamiliar, but it seemed a face had stood out. A blonde, smiling as cheerily as children running to their elementary school and the redhead knew this person wasn't a bad person or a good person._

"_Who are you?"_

"_I'm the one and only lover of Francine Frances Fulbright." _


End file.
